'Jack Kerouac' (
pronounced ) (
March 12 1922 –
October 21 1969) was an
American novelist,
writer,
poet, and
artist. Along with
William S. Burroughs and
Allen Ginsberg, he is amongst the best known of the writers (and friends) known as the
Beat Generation, a term he coined.
Kerouac was popular, but received little critical acclaim in life. Today, he is considered an important and influential writer of spontaneous, confessional prose that inspired others, including
Tom Robbins,
Lester Bangs,
Richard Brautigan, and
Ken Kesey, and writers of the
New Journalism. Kerouac also influenced musicians such as
The Beatles,
Bob Dylan,
Morrissey,
Simon & Garfunkel, and
Jim Morrison.
[1] Kerouac's best-known books are ''
On the Road'', ''
The Dharma Bums,'' ''
Big Sur'', and ''
Visions of Cody''.
Kerouac divided most of his youth roaming the U.S. and life at his mother's house. In the changing post-war America, he sought his place, eventually rejecting the values and social norms of the
Fifties. His writing reflects the desire to break free from them and find higher meaning.
This existential search led him to experiment with drugs and travelling the world. His writing is credited as
catalyst for the
1960s counterculture. An alcoholic, the forty-seven-year-old Jack Kerouac died in
St. Petersburg, Florida, of an
internal hemorrhage.
Life
Jack Kerouac was born 'Jean-Louis Lebris de Kerouac,' in
Lowell, Massachusetts to
French-Canadian parents, Leo-Alcide Kerouac and Gabrielle-Ange Lévesque, natives of
the province of Québec,
Canada. Like many other
Québécois of their generation, the Lévesques and Kerouacs were part of the
Quebec emigration to
New England to find employment.
Kerouac did not start to learn
English until the age of six, and at home he and his family spoke
Quebec French. At an early age, he was profoundly affected by the death (from rheumatic fever, age nine) of his elder brother Gérard, an event later described in his novel ''
Visions of Gerard''. Some of Kerouac's poetry was written in French, and in letters written to friend
Allen Ginsberg towards the end of his life, he expressed his desire to speak his parents' native tongue again.
Kerouac's athletic prowess led him to become an amazing 100 meter hurdler on his local high school track team, and earned him scholarship offers from
Boston College,
Notre Dame and
Columbia University. He entered
Columbia University after spending the scholarship's required year at
Horace Mann School. Kerouac broke a leg playing football during his freshman season, and argued constantly with coach
Lou Little who kept him benched. While at Columbia, he wrote several sports articles for the student newspaper, the ''Columbia Daily Spectator''.

Jack Kerouac lived above this flower shop in Ozone Park.
When his football scholarship did not pan out, Kerouac dropped out of Columbia, though he continued to live for a period on
New York City's
Upper West Side with his girlfriend,
Edie Parker. It was during this time that he met the people with whom he was later to journey around the world, the subjects of many of his novels: the so-called
Beat Generation, including
Allen Ginsberg,
Neal Cassady,
John Clellon Holmes,
Herbert Huncke and
William S. Burroughs. Kerouac joined the
United States Merchant Marine in
1942 and in
1943 joined the
United States Navy, but was honorably discharged during
World War II on psychiatric grounds (he was of "indifferent disposition").
[2]
In 1944, Kerouac was arrested as an accessory in the murder of David Kammerer, who'd been stalking Kerouac's friend
Lucien Carr since Carr was a teenager in St. Louis. (William Burroughs was himself a native of St. Louis, and it was through Carr that Kerouac came to know both Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg.) When Kammerer's obsession with Carr turned violent, Carr stabbed him to death and turned to Kerouac for help. Together, they disposed of evidence. Advised by Burroughs to turn themselves in, Kerouac's father at first refused to pay his bail. Kerouac then agreed to marry
Edie Parker if she'd pay it. Their marriage was annulled a year later, and Kerouac and Burroughs briefly collaborated on a novel about the Kammerer murder entitled ''
And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks''. Though the book was never published, an excerpt eventually appeared in ''Word Virus: A William S. Burroughs Reader''. Kerouac also later wrote about the murder in his novel
Vanity of Duluoz.
In between sea voyages, Kerouac stayed in New York with friends from
Fordham University in
The Bronx.. Later, he lived with his parents in the
Ozone Park neighborhood of
Queens, after they, too, moved to New York. He wrote his first novel, ''The Town and the City'' while living there. His friends jokingly called him "The Wizard of Ozone Park,"
[3] a spoof of
Thomas Edison's "Wizard of Menlo Park" nickname while simultaneously alluding to the title character of the film ''
The Wizard of Oz''.
''The Town and the City'' was published in
1950 under the name "John Kerouac," and, though it earned him a few respectable reviews, the book sold poorly. Heavily influenced by Kerouac's reading of
Thomas Wolfe, it reflects on the generational epic formula and the contrasts of small town life versus the multi-dimensional, and larger, city. The book was heavily edited by
Robert Giroux; some 400 pages were taken out.
For the next six years, Kerouac wrote constantly but could not find a publisher. Building upon previous drafts tentatively titled "The Beat Generation" and "Gone on the Road," Kerouac wrote what is now known as ''
On the Road'' in April, 1951 (ISBN 0-312-20677-1).
Part of the Kerouac myth is that, fueled by
Benzedrine and
coffee, he completed the first version of the novel during a three week extended session of spontaneous confessional prose. This session produced the now famous scroll of ''On the Road.'' In fact, according to his Columbia professor and mentor
Mark Van Doren, he had outlined much of the work in his journals over several years. His technique was heavily influenced by
Jazz, especially
Bebop, and later,
Buddhism, as well as the famous 'Joan Anderson letter', authored by
Neal Cassady.
[4]
Publishers rejected the book due to its experimental writing style and its sympathetic tone towards minorities and marginalized social groups of the
United States in the 1950s. In 1957,
Viking Press purchased the novel, demanding major revisions.
[5]
In 2007, to coincide with the 50th anniversary of ''On the Road's publishing,
[6] an uncensored version of ''On the Road'' will be released by Viking Press, containing text that was removed from the released version because it was deemed too explicit for 1957 audiences. It will be drawn solely from the original scroll
[7] and the only things not included will be things that Kerouac himself crossed out.
The book was largely autobiographical, narrated from the point of view of the character
Sal Paradise, describing Kerouac's roadtrip adventures across the
United States and
Mexico with
Neal Cassady, the model for the character of
Dean Moriarty. Kerouac's novel is often described as the defining work of the post-World War II
Beat Generation and Kerouac came to be called "the king of the beat generation," a term that he never felt comfortable with, and once observed, ''I'm not a beatnik, I'm a Catholic.''
[8]
Kerouac's friendship with Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs and
Gregory Corso, among others, defined a generation. Kerouac also wrote and narrated a "Beat" movie entitled ''
Pull My Daisy'' in
1958. In
1954, Kerouac discovered Dwight Goddard's ''A Buddhist Bible'' at the
San Jose Library, which marked the beginning of Kerouac's immersion into
Buddhism.
He chronicled parts of this, as well as some of his adventures with
Gary Snyder and other
San Francisco-area poets, in the book ''
The Dharma Bums'', set in
California and published in
1958. ''The Dharma Bums'', which some have called the sequel to ''On the Road'', was written in
Orlando, Florida during late
1957 through early
1958.
Kerouac developed something of a friendship with the scholar
Alan Watts (cryptically named Arthur Wayne in Kerouac's novel ''
Big Sur'', and Alex Aums in ''
Desolation Angels''). He also met and had discussions with the famous
Japanese
Zen Buddhist authority
D.T. Suzuki.
In July 1957, Kerouac moved to a small house on Clouser Ave. in the College Park section of Orlando, Florida to await the release of ''On the Road''. A few weeks later, the review appeared in the ''
New York Times'' proclaiming Kerouac the voice of a new generation. Kerouac was hailed as a major American writer, and reluctantly as the voice of the Beat Generation. His fame would come as an unmanageable surge that would ultimately be his undoing.
John Antonelli's 1985 documentary ''Kerouac, the Movie'' begins and ends with footage of Kerouac reading from ''On the Road'' and "Visions of Cody" from ''
The Tonight Show'' with
Steve Allen in 1957. Kerouac appears intelligent but shy. "Are you nervous?" asks Steve Allen. "Naw", says Kerouac, sweating and fiddling.
In 1955 Kerouac wrote a biography of
Siddhartha Gautama, entitled ''Wake Up'', which was unpublished during his lifetime but eventually serialised in '', 1993-95. Shortly before his death Kerouac told interviewer
Joseph Lelyveld of the ''New York Times'', "I'm not a
beatnik. I'm a Catholic." After pointing to a painting of
Pope Paul VI, Kerouac noted, "You know who painted that? Me."
[9]
With his first novel, ‘The Road’ (published in 1957), which is generally acknowledged as his only masterpiece, he became the symbol of the
beat generation’. A role he violently despised. This was followed by a negative stance on the values of the
hippie movement in the sixties.
He died on
October 21 1969 at St. Anthony's Hospital in
St. Petersburg,
Florida, one day after being rushed with severe abdominal pain from his St. Petersburg home by ambulance. His death, at the age of 47, resulted from an internal hemorrhage (bleeding
esophageal varices) caused by
cirrhosis of the liver, the result of a lifetime of heavy drinking. At the time of his death, he was living with his third wife Stella, and his mother Gabrielle. Kerouac is buried in his home town of
Lowell and was honored posthumously with a Doctor of Letters degree from his hometown's University of Massachusetts - Lowell on June 2, 2007.
Career
Kerouac realized he wanted to be a writer before the age of ten; his father was a
linotypist and ran a print shop, publishing ''The Lowell Spotlight''. He tended to write constantly, carrying a notebook with him everywhere. Letters to friends and family members tended to be long and rambling, including great detail about his daily life and thoughts.
Prior to becoming a writer, he tried a varied list of careers. He was a sports reporter for ''The Lowell Sun''; a temporary worker in construction and food service; a
United States Merchant Marine and he joined the
United States Navy twice. Throughout all of this he led a nomadic lifestyle, never having a home of his own. Alternatively, he lived with his mother, stayed with friends or camped out.
Style
Kerouac is generally considered to be the father of the Beat movement, although it must be said that he actively disliked such labels, and, in particular, regarded the subsequent
Hippie movement with some disdain. Kerouac's method was heavily influenced by the prolific explosion of
Jazz, especially the
Bebop genre established by
Charlie Parker,
Dizzy Gillespie,
Thelonious Monk, and others. Later, Kerouac would include ideas he developed in his
Buddhist studies, beginning with
Gary Snyder. He called this style Spontaneous Prose, a literary technique akin to
stream of consciousness.
Kerouac utilized
Chögyam Trungpa's "first-thought-best-thought" Buddhist idea,
[10] and applied it to spontaneous writing; many of his books exemplified this approach including ''On the Road'', ''Visions of Cody'', ''Visions of Gerard'', ''Big Sur'', and ''The Subterraneans''. The central features of this writing method were the ideas of breath (borrowed from Jazz and from Buddhist meditation breathing), improvising words over the inherent structures of mind and language, and not editing a single word (much of his work was edited by Donald Merriam Allen, a major figure in Beat Generation poetry who also edited some of Ginsberg's work as well). Connected with his idea of breath was the elimination of the
period, preferring to use a long, connecting dash instead. As such, the phrases occurring between dashes might resemble
improvisational jazz licks. When spoken, the words might take on a certain kind of rhythm, though none of it pre-meditated.
Gary Snyder was greatly admired by Kerouac, and many of his ideas influenced Kerouac. ''
The Dharma Bums'' contains accounts of a mountain climbing trip Kerouac took with Snyder. One summer, Kerouac took a job as a
fire lookout in the North Cascade Mountains in Washington state on Snyder's recommendation. Kerouac described the experience in his novel ''Desolation Angels''.
He would go on for hours to friends and strangers about his method, often drunk, which at first wasn't well received by Allen Ginsberg, though Ginsberg would later be one of its great proponents, and indeed was apparently influenced by Kerouac's free flowing prose method of writing in the composition of his masterpiece "
Howl". It was at about the time that Kerouac wrote ''The Subterraneans'' that he was approached by Ginsberg and others to formally explicate exactly how he wrote it, how he did Spontaneous Prose. Among the writings he set down specifically about his Spontaneous Prose method, the most concise would be ''Belief and Technique for Modern Prose'', a list of thirty "essentials."
# Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for
yr own joy
# Submissive to everything, open, listening
# Try never get drunk outside your own house
# Be in love with your life
# Something that you feel will find its own form
# Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind
# Blow as deep as you want to blow
# Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind
# The unspeakable visions of the individual
# No time for poetry but exactly what is
# Visionary tics shivering in the chest
# In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you
# Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition
# Like
Proust be an old
teahead of time
# Telling the true story of the world in interior monolog
# The jewel center of interest is the eye within the eye
# Write in recollection and amazement for yrself
# Work from pithy middle eye out, swimming in language sea
# Accept loss forever
# Believe in the holy contour of life
# Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind
# Don't think of words when you stop but to see picture better
# Keep track of every day the date emblazoned in yr morning
# No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge
# Write for the world to read and see yr exact pictures of it
# Bookmovie is the movie in words, the visual American form
# In praise of Character in the Bleak inhuman Loneliness
# Composing wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under, crazier the better
# You're a Genius all the time
# Writer-Director of Earthly movies Sponsored & Angeled in Heaven
Some believed that at times Kerouac's writing technique did not produce lively or energetic prose.
Truman Capote famously said about Kerouac's work, "That's not writing, it's typing." Despite such criticism, it should be kept in mind that what Kerouac said about writing and how he wrote are sometimes seen to be separate. According to
Carolyn Cassady and other people who knew him he rewrote and rewrote. Some claim his own style was in no way spontaneous. However it should be taken into account that throughout most of the '50s, Kerouac was constantly trying to have his work published, and consequently he often revised and re-arranged manuscripts in an often futile attempt to interest publishers, as is clearly documented in his collected letters (which are in themselves wonderful examples of his style). ''The Subterraneans'' and ''Visions of Cody'' are possibly the best examples of Kerouac's free-flowing spontaneous prose method.
Trivia
★ Kerouac mentions his best friends George Apostolos and Sebastian Sampas, killed during
World War II, on numerous occasions throughout his writings.
[11]
★ Kerouac's boyhood friends George Apostolos and Sammy Sampas were the uncle and cousin, respectively, of
Ted Leonsis, the prominent businessman.
[12]
★ At the time of his death in 1969, Kerouac's estate was worth little more than ninety-one dollars, but by 2004 had grown to an estimated $20 million.
★ Kerouac did not learn to drive until 1956 (at age 34) and he never had a driver's license.
★ In a scene from
Bob Dylan's 1978 film ''
Renaldo and Clara'', Dylan and poet
Allen Ginsberg are seen at Kerouac's grave.
★ The alley that separates the
City Lights Bookstore and Vesuvio Saloon on Columbus Avenue in
San Francisco's
North Beach neighborhood is officially named by the city as Jack Kerouac Alley. The alley is famous for being a meeting ground for many luminaires of the Beat Generation, including Kerouac who often drank at Vesuvio.
★ Kerouac was related to botanist
Brother Marie Victorin (born Conrad Kirouac) from his father's side, while his mother was a
second cousin of
Quebec Premier René Lévesque.
★ Kerouac invented his own
fantasy baseball league when he was a child. He continued playing this game well into adulthood.
[13]
★ Kerouac appeared as the character ''Gene Pasternak'' in
Go by
John Clellon Holmes.
★ The 10,000 Maniacs 1987 LP ''In My Tribe'' contained a song titled "Hey Jack Kerouac"
★ In Steve Earles album ''The Hard Way'' the first song "The Other Kind" mentions Jack Kerouac and being ''back out the on the road again'' an obvious influence on his music.
★ The
King Crimson album ''
Beat'' contains the song "
Neal and Jack and Me", a tribute to the spirit of ''
On the Road''.
★ The band
Rusted Root has a song called "Jack Kerouac" on their Live album.
Influence
Kerouac is considered by some as the "King of the
Beats".
Kerouac's plainspeak manner of writing prose, as well as his nearly long-form haiku style of poetry have inspired countless modern neo-beat writers and artists, such as
George Condo (Painter), Roger Craton (Poet and Philosopher), and
John McNaughton (filmmaker).
Brazilian poet Wagner Hertzog de Oliveira said that "Kerouac was the most beautiful, sensitive and meaningful voice of American literature post-World War II."
The
Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at
Naropa University is named in his honor. In 2007, Kerouac was awarded a posthumous
honorary degree from the
University of Massachusetts Lowell.
[14]
Bibliography

Neal Cassady & Jack Kerouac from the cover of ''On the Road''
Prose
★ '' (1936-1943) (ISBN 0-670-88822-2)
★ ''
Orpheus Emerged'' (1944-1945) (ISBN 0-7434-7514-3)
★ ''
And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks'' (1945) (unpublished work; with
William S. Burroughs)
★ ''
The Town and the City'' (1946-1949) (ISBN 0-15-690790-9)
★ ''
On the Road'' (1948-1956) (ISBN 0-14-004259-8)
★ ''
Visions of Cody'' (1951-1952) (ISBN 0-14-017907-0)
★ ''
Pic'' (1951 & 1969) (ISBN 0-7043-1122-4, out of print; currently available in ISBN 0-8021-3061-5)
★ ''
Book of Sketches'' (1952-1957) (ISBN 0-14-200215-1)
★ ''
Book of Dreams'' (1952-1960) (ISBN 0-87286-027-2)
★ ''
Doctor Sax'' (1952) (ISBN 0-8021-3049-6)
★ ''
Maggie Cassidy'' (1953) (ISBN 0-14-017906-2)
★ ''
The Subterraneans'' (1953) (ISBN 0-8021-3186-7)
★ ''
Good Blonde & Others'' (1955) (ISBN 0-912516-22-4)
★ ''
Tristessa'' (1955-1956) (ISBN 0-14-016811-7)
★ ''
Visions of Gerard'' (1956) (ISBN 0-14-014452-8)
★ ''
Old Angel Midnight'' (1956) (ISBN 0-912516-97-6)
★ ''
Desolation Angels'' (1956 & 1961) (ISBN 1-57322-505-3)
★ ''
The Dharma Bums'' (1957) (ISBN 0-14-004252-0)
★ ''
Lonesome Traveler'' (1960) (ISBN 0-8021-3074-7)
★ ''
Big Sur'' (1961) (ISBN 0-14-016812-5)
★ ''
Satori in Paris'' (1965) (ISBN 0-394-17437-2, out of print; currently available in ISBN 0-8021-3061-5)
★ ''
Vanity of Duluoz'' (1968) (ISBN 0-14-023639-2)
Poetry, letters, audio recordings and other writings
★ ''
Mexico City Blues'' (1955)
★ ''
Scattered Poems'' (1945-1968)
★ ''
Heaven and Other Poems'' (1957-1962)
★ '' (1959) (with Albert Saijo and Lew Welch)
★ ''
Pomes All Sizes'' (compiled 1960)
★ ''
San Francisco Blues'' (1954)
★ ''
Book of Blues'' (1954-1961)
★ ''
Book of Haikus''
★ ''
(1983) (1000 copies Edited By Arthur and Kit Knight) ISBN 0-934660-06-9
★ ''
The Scripture of the Golden Eternity'' (1956) (meditations, koans, poems) ISBN 0-87286-291-7
★ ''
Wake Up'' (1955)
★ ''
Some of the Dharma'' (1954-1955)
★ ''
Beat Generation'' (a play written in 1957 but not found or published until 2005)
[1]
★ ''
★ ''
★ '' (1947-1954)
★ ''
Safe In Heaven Dead'' (Interview fragments)
★ ''
Conversations with Jack Kerouac'' (Interviews)
★ ''
Empty Phantoms'' (Interviews)
★ ''
★ ''
Readings by Jack Kerouac on the Beat Generation (1959)'' (LP)
★ ''
Poetry For The Beat Generation (1959)'' (LP)
★ ''
Blues And Haikus (1960)'' (LP)
★ ''
The Jack Kerouac Collection'' (1990) [Box] (Audio CD Collection of 3 LPs)
★ ''
The Jack Kerouac Romnibus(1995) (a multimedia CD-ROM project coupled with a book) (Ralph Lombreglia and Kate Bernhardt)
★ ''Reads on the Road'' (1999) (Audio CD)
★ ''
Doctor Sax & Great World Snake'' (2003) (Play Adaptation with Audio CD)
★ ''
Door Wide Open'' (2000) (by Joyce Johnson. Includes letters from Jack Kerouac)
Film
★ ''
Pull My Daisy'' (1959 - Short Film)
[2]
★ ''What Happened to Kerouac?'' (1986 - Documentary)
[3]
See also
★
Beat generation
★
Beatnik
★
Neal Cassady
★
References in ''On the Road''
Notes
1. Hopkins, J: ''No One Here Gets Out Alive'', p. 11. Warner Books, 1980
2. http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0906052_jack_kerouac_1.html
3. http://www.wordsareimportant.com/ozonepark.htm
4. http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Workshop/5083/letter3.html
5. http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/BioRC
6. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14045410
7. http://www.npr.org/programs/atc/features/2005/feb/kerouac/scroll.html
8. http://web.archive.org/web/20050206191742/www.jackkerouac.com/about/quotes.htm
9. http://partners.nytimes.com/books/97/09/07/home/kerouac-obit.html
10. Spontaneous Mind: Selected Interviews, 1958-1996, , Allen, Ginsberg, HarperCollins, ,
11. http://www.uunashua.org/sermons/todiefor.shtml
12. http://www.cwhonors.org/archives/histories/Leonsis.pdf
13. http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/article.cfm?archiveDate=08-24-01&storyID=6463
14. http://www.uml.edu/Media/PressReleases/Commencement_2007.html
Further reading
★ Robertson, Ray.
Happened Later''"Thomas Allen Publishers, 'September 5, 2007'. ISBN 0887622798
★ Amburm, Ellis. "''Subterranean Kerouac: The Hidden Life of Jack Kerouac''". St. Martin's Press, 1999. ISBN 0-312-20677-1
★ Amram, David. "''Offbeat: Collaborating with Kerouac''". Thunder's Mouth Press, 2002.ISBN 1-56025-362-2
★ Bartlett, Lee (ed.) "''The Beats: Essays in Criticism''". London: McFarland, 1981.
★ Beaulieu, Victor-Lévy. "''Jack Kerouac: A Chicken Essay''". Coach House Press, 1975.
★ Brooks, Ken. "''The Jack Kerouac Digest''". Agenda, 2001.
★ Cassady, Carolyn. "''Neal Cassady Collected Letters, 1944-1967''". Penguin, 2004. ISBN 0-14-200217-8
★ Cassady, Carolyn. "''Off the Road: Twenty Years with Cassady, Kerouac and Ginsberg''". William Morrow, 1990.
★ Challis, Chris. "''Quest for Kerouac''". Faber & Faber, 1984.
★ Charters, Ann. "''Kerouac''". San Francisco: Straight Arrow Books, 1973.
★ Charters, Ann (ed.) "''The Portable Beat Reader''". New York: Penguin, 1992.
★ Charters, Ann (ed.) "''The Portable Jack Kerouac''". New York: Penguin, 1995.
★ Christy, Jim. "''The Long Slow Death of Jack Kerouac''". ECW Press, 1998.
★
Clark, Tom. "''Jack Kerouac''". Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1984.
★
Coolidge, Clark. "''Now It's Jazz: Writings on Kerouac & the Sounds''". Living Batch, 1999.
★ Dagier, Patricia; Quéméner, Hervé. "''Jack Kerouac: Au Bout de la Route ... La Bretagne''". An Here, 1999.
★ Edington, Stephen. "''Kerouac's Nashua Roots''". Transition, 1999.
★ Ellis, R.J., "''Liar! Liar! Jack Kerouac - Novelist''". Greenwich Exchange, 1999.
★ French, Warren. "''Jack Kerouac''". Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1986.
★ Gaffié, Luc. "''Jack Kerouac: The New Picaroon''". Postillion Press, 1975.
★ Giamo, Ben. "''Kerouac, The Word and The Way''". Southern Illinois U.P., 2000.
★ Gifford, Barry. "''Kerouac's Town''". Creative Arts, 1977.
★ Gifford, Barry; Lee, Lawrence. "''Jack's Book: An Oral Biography of Jack Kerouac''". St. Martin's Press, 1978. ISBN 0-14-005269-0
★ Goldstein, N.W., "Kerouac's On the Road." Explicator 50.1. 1991.
★ Haynes, Sarah,
Exploration of Jack Kerouac's Buddhism:Text and Life"
★ Heller, Christine
Jack Kerouac and Gary Snyder: Chasing Zen Clouds
★ Hemmer, Kurt. "''Encyclopedia of Beat Literature: The Essential Guide to the Lives and Works of the Beat Writers''". Facts on File, Inc., 2007.
★ Hipkiss, Robert A., "''Jack Kerouac: Prophet of the New Romanticism''". Regents Press, 1976.
★ Holmes, John Clellon. "''Visitor: Jack Kerouac in Old Saybrook''". tuvoti, 1981.
★ Holmes, John Clellon. "''Gone In October: Last Reflections on Jack Kerouac''". Limberlost, 1985.
★ Holton, Robert. "''On the Road: Kerouac's Ragged American Journey''". Twayne, 1999.
★ Hrebeniak, Michael. "''Action Writing: Jack Kerouac"s Wild Form,''" Carbondale IL., Southern Illinois UP, 2006.
★ Huebel, Harry Russell. "''Jack Kerouac''". Boise State U.P., 1979.
★ Hunt, Tim. "''Kerouac's Crooked Road''". Hamden: Archon Books, 1981.
★ Jarvis, Charles. "''Visions of Kerouac''". Ithaca Press, 1973.
★ Johnson, Joyce. "''Minor Characters: A Young Woman's Coming-Of-Age in the Beat Orbit of Jack Kerouac''". Penguin Books, 1999.
★ Johnson, Joyce. "''Door Wide Open: A Beat Love Affair in Letters, 1957-1958''". Viking, 2000.
★ Johnson, Ronna C., "''You're Putting Me On: Jack Kerouac and the Postmodern Emergence''". College Literature. 27.1 2000.
★ Jones, James T., "''A Map of Mexico City Blues: Jack Kerouac as Poet''". Southern Illinois U.P., 1992.
★ Jones, James T., "''Jack Kerouac's Duluoz Legend''". Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1999.
★ Jones, Jim. "''Use My Name: Kerouac's Forgotten Families''". ECW Press, 1999.
★ Jones, Jim. "''Jack Kerouac's Nine Lives''". Elbow/Cityful Press, 2001.
★ Kealing, Bob. "''Kerouac in Florida: Where the Road Ends''". Arbiter Press, 2004.
★ Kerouac, Joan Havery. "''Nobody's Wife: The Smart Aleck and the King of the Beats''". Creative Arts, 2000.
★
Maher Jr., Paul. "''Kerouac: The Definitive Biography''". Lanham: Taylor Trade P, July 2004 ISBN 0-87833-305-3
★ McNally, Dennis. "''Desolate Angel: Jack Kerouac, the Beat Generation, and America''". Da Capo Press, 2003. ISBN 0-306-81222-3
★ Miles, Barry. "''Jack Kerouac: King of the Beats''". Virgin, 1998.
★ Montgomery, John. "''Jack Kerouac: A Memoir ...''". Giligia Press, 1970.
★ Montgomery, John. "''Kerouac West Coast''". Fels & Firn Press, 1976.
★ Montgomery, John. "''The Kerouac We Knew''". Fels & Firn Press, 1982.
★ Montgomery, John. "''Kerouac at the Wild Boar''". Fels & Firn Press, 1986.
★ Mortenson, Erik R., "''Beating Time: Configurations of Temporality in Jack Kerouac's On the Road''". College Literature 28.3. 2001.
★ Motier, Donald. "''Gerard: The Influence of Jack Kerouac's Brother on his Life and Writing''". Beaulieu Street Press, 1991.
★ Nicosia, Gerald. "''Memory Babe: A Critical Biography of Jack Kerouac''". Berkeley: U of Cal P, 1994. ISBN 0-520-08569-8
★ Parker, Brad. "''Jack Kerouac: An Introduction''". Lowell Corporation for the Humanities, 1989.
★ Sandison, David. "''Jack Kerouac''". Hamlyn, 1999.
★ Swartz, Omar. "''The View From On the Road: The Rhetorical Vision of Jack Kerouac''". Southern Illinois U.P., 1999.
★ Swick, Thomas. "''South Florida Sun Sentinel''". February 22, 2004. Article: "Jack Kerouac in Orlando".
★ Theado, Matt. "''Understanding Jack Kerouac''". Columbia: University of South Carolina, 2000.
★ Turner, Steve. "''Angelheaded Hipster: A Life of Jack Kerouac''". Viking Books, 1996. ISBN 0-670-87038-2
★ Weinreich, Regina. "''The Spontaneous Prose of Jack Kerouac''". Southern Illinois U.P., 1987.
External links
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Kerouac Family Association bilingual Web Site
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Kerouac.com — Online Resource
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Jack Kerouac's Life
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Jack Kerouac GLBT page
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Jack Kerouac Bibliography
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Books comprising Jack Kerouac's Duluoz legend
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Key to the characters in Jack Kerouac's books, and their real-life counterparts
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Key to the real people represented in Jack Kerouac's books, and their fictional counterparts
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A more complete Jack Kerouac Character Key from the everything2 site
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Blue Neon Alley — Jack Kerouac directory
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Interview with Jack Kerouac (Montreal, 1967) (in French)
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Blyler, Kerouac, and Bohemian Roads — Article linking Kerouac's novel On the Road with D.A. Blyler's Steffi's Club.
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A letter he wrote to Timothy Leary, describing his experience with psilocybin
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American Writers: Jack Kerouac — A two-hour C-SPAN television show about Jack Kerouac
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Jack Kerouac's Road - A Franco-American Odyssey - A 1989
National Film Board of Canada production, directed by
Herménégilde Chiasson
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"A Vision of Kerouac as The Shadow" — a six page comic about two guys in Indiana talking about Kerouac
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"About the Beat Generation", by Jack Kerouac — a definition of the Beat Generation in Kerouac's own words
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Dharma Bummed: A Marxist Analysis of Jack Kerouac and the Beats
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Language Is A Virus Kerouac's 'Belief and Technique for Modern Prose' and 'Essentials of Spontaneous Prose'
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Denver Beat Photo Tour
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Photos of the Kerouac Gas Station in Longmont, CO
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Neal Cassady's official site authored by his family and updated monthly with stories and photos
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Photos, Jack Kerouac's Last House, St. Petersburg, FL
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Dharma Beat — A Jack Kerouac website with articles on Kerouac including a Calendar and a Links page
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Jack Kerouac Project website
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Lowell Celebrates Kerouac! festival site
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''Independent on Sunday'' feature
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Analysis of Kerouac's life and works from a Roman Catholic perspective
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A selection of front covers of various editions of On the Road
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Guardian article on the history of the play Beat Generation, written and left unpublished for almost 50 years
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The beat goes on: Tracing Kerouac's tracks 50 years later: A restless spirit and 'holy' pie endure By Charles M. Sennott,
Boston Globe Staff |
July 15,
2007
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On the Road Again: Friends and scholars recall the man behind the myth of Jack Kerouac. Compiled by Meghan O'Rourke, ''Slate'', September 4, 2007